


How are Babies Made?

by orphan_account



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bad Puns, F/F, Family, Fluff, Gender-Neutral Frisk, How do you even tag this story, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I mean it gets a little rowdy but not THAT rowdy, I really am, I'm really sorry for writing this, Nonbinary Frisk, Oneshot, POV First Person, Post-Pacifist Route, Reader Is Not Frisk, Sex, There aren't any real explicit descriptions, actually has some serious theorizing, anything sexual is just in conversation, because I'm writing this, but mostly just, but without sexytimes?, don't question the sad, spoilers for all routes, unless someone begs me to continue lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-12 05:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5654959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I mean, I knew the child would ask this question eventually. But how was I supposed to impart this sort of knowledge when I myself had no idea how humans reproduce?</p>
<p>...Needless to say, this wasn't in today's curriculum.</p>
<p>(Toriel explains the birds and the bees to Frisk. Well, the Reaper Birds and the Temmies, anyways.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How are Babies Made?

"Mom?" Frisk asked. I felt a pull on the edge of my dress.

"What is it, dear?" I looked down at the child, putting down the plate I was washing. 

"How are babies made?" 

My eyes flew open and I took a deep breath. I'd been expecting this. I really had. Just not at this moment. _If this is anything like it was to explain this to Chara, this is going to be quite the bad time._ "T-that isn't part of your education just yet." 

"You said that it's important for me to learn outside of school." 

"Frisk, I don't want to talk about this." 

"Oh, I'll ask Undyne! I bet she knows!" Frisk seemed a bit _too_ chipper all of a sudden.

"You are NOT learning this from Undyne!" 

"Why not?"

"She'd be a bit... _too_ enthusiastic." I could picture her with diagrams, using spears to represent-- _Er, let's drop that chain of thought._

"What about Mr. Asgore?" 

I stiffened. "My child, you absolutely must not ask him that question. Do you hear me?" 

"Why? Is it bad to make babies?" 

"No! Children are wonderful. But... The process is... difficult to explain." 

"But I want to know!" Frisk whined. _Frisk is going to ask someone else if I don't explain it. But how on earth should I go about doing that? I don't even know how humans have children!_ "Can I ask Sans?"

_Sans. Sans would know what to do._ Part of me hated dragging him into it, but he was also probably the only one who would be able to maneuver himself through this without completely scarring the child. "I'll invite him over. I'm sure he could explain it." 

"Really? Thanks, Mom!" Frisk was beaming. _Oh, don't look so happy just yet._

I pulled out my phone and stared at it. _He will kill me._ I began pressing in his number very slowly, and Frisk looked up at me expectantly. I closed my eyes and pressed the call button.

_Ring... Ring..._

"yo. what's up, tori?" 

"Er, hello, Sans. Would you mind coming over? I gravely need your help."

"oh? sounds like you _dug your own grave_ , huh? did the kid get stuck in a tree again?" 

"No. But please, hurry." I'd barely hung up the phone before Sans was at the door. _Him and his shortcuts._ I opened the door. "Hello, Sans."

"you called?"

"Frisk here has just asked a... very important question," I replied.

"oh, really? and the great toriel couldn't give 'em a tutorial?" 

"Not in this case." I sighed.

"heh. well, go ahead kid, shoot. whaddya wanna know?"

"I just wanted to know how babies are made," Frisk told him. He blinked once, and then burst out laughing. "What?!" the young one exclaimed.

"i just can't believe tori would rather have me tell you than her," he said, grinning obnoxiously.

"I don't know how to explain it!" I retorted. 

"oh, that's easy. well, monsters are made of three parts, right? three main parts, anyways. there's a soul, a body, and magic keepin it all together."

"Yeah," Frisk agreed.

"so there's a few different ways to make a baby monster. the least complicated way is when a monster can grow a baby inside of 'em."

"Like a human does?" I asked. 

"oh, yeah. i think it works the same way as a human. but, uh, how does a human make a baby? i'm not too updated on human anatomy... i guess i only know the _bare bones_." 

I laughed so hard I snorted, which made Sans laugh. Poor Frisk was just trying to deduce what they knew about human reproduction.

"Well, If a man and a woman love each other very much--" 

"wait, kid. hold up. you mean there's got to be a male and a female?" 

"I think so," I said. 

"Then how do two females or two males have children?" I asked with a gasp. Sure, it was a lot simpler for a male and a female to reproduce, provided the organs were compatible, but any monster could easily have a child with any other monster regardless of their body type or gender. In fact, gender was so useless in the monster community that most monsters didn't bother to specify.

"I don't think they do," Frisk said, biting their thumb. "But I don't really know how it all works." 

"so alphys and undyne couldn't have kids if they were humans? man, humans are dumb. uh, well, most humans," Sans said, grinning. "continue. this is already interesting." 

"This is the part I don't know too well. I know that the mom has eggs in her, and the dad has to water them with a gardening hose. I think he does it through the belly button, but the belly button will only open if you really, really love someone. And then the baby will grow inside the mom, and then when the baby's big enough to be born, the mom will poop it out." 

To my credit, I was trying very hard not to laugh. Sans was not. "tori... oh, man..." He laughed in that big “wah ha ha!” way of his and didn’t even bother to wipe the tears that were falling from his eyes. I didn't even know skeletons were capable of crying. I wasn't sure how much Sans knew about the reproductive processes of mammalian monsters, but Frisk's description, albeit... quirky, seemed to be the same. 

"Indeed, that is how I created Asriel. ...More or less," I added as Sans started laughing all over again. 

"Does that mean you really loved Asgore?" Frisk asked. Sans stopped laughing immediately, which I took note of. 

"I... I did, once. But those days are over." 

"I know," Frisk said. They didn't seem bothered by this fact, and I sighed in relief. "So what's the other way you can make a monster?" 

"Well, that's a bit more difficult. See, you must first find a body for the soul to grow in. When you, err... Water a mother's seed, it will grow a body inside of the mother. But many monsters can't grow monsters inside of them in the first place." I looked at Sans, hoping he could explain that better.

"like skeletons," he said with a grin, right on cue. "oh, and some monsters might be able to grow a monster inside of them, but they don't have a, uh, belly button. or a... hose." 

"So what do those monsters do?" Frisk asked. 

“you gotta get real creative, finding a body. plants work well… that’s how you get guys like bigmouth and vegetoid. There was a family of slime monsters back in snowdin, though i don’t know where they ended up.”

“But how do you make a soul?” 

“You can’t create a soul unless you can make a baby grow inside of you,” I told them. “But what you can do is give up a piece of your soul and fuse it to a piece of another monster’s soul, and then seal it with magic to the body.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?!” Frisk exclaimed.

“There’s no painless way to bring a child into the world,” I replied. 

“yeah, breaking off a piece of your soul is supposed to be excruciating. you really gotta put your heart and soul into it.” Sans winked. ““not that i’d know. fusion’s just a cheap tactic to make weak monsters stronger, right tori?”

“I wouldn’t know. I think it’s a powerful representation of love,” I replied.

“How were you made, Sans?” Frisk asked. Now, that was quite the question. It seemed like a difficult process to make a skeleton, probably one that involved a lot of rocks. 

“We don’t talk about that, buddy,” Sans said, suddenly serious. 

“Why not?” Frisk frowned.

“I didn’t ask to be made, kid. And neither did Papyrus.” Sans was grinning, but the light in his eyes disappeared. I suddenly felt cold. _How **are** skeletons made?_

“Is it bad to make a skeleton baby?” Frisk asked.

“My child, I think you need to work on your homework,” I decided. Sans was clearly uncomfortable, and though I was curious, I wasn’t going to have him explain the process--whatever it was-- to a child as young as Frisk.

“But I wanna learn more about babies!”

“We can learn more about babies once you learn more about science. Now please, my child, go to your room.” 

Frisk huffed and ran up the stairs. Sans turned to me. ”thanks.”

“If you need to talk about anything, I am here, always.” 

“the kid’s listening to every word we’re saying, you know.” Sans said, his grin apparent as ever.

“Then come with me.” I gestured towards the basement.

“i dunno, tori.” His pupils darted to the side.

“Sans, I do not know how you came to be, but I will never judge you for it.”

“i find that a little hard to believe, but i guess there’s nothing to lose. except you know, everything.” 

“You place too little faith in our friendship.” I smiled. 

“tori, i _know_ you. you’d never look at me the same way again. this is my secret. every one of us has ‘em, and this is one thing i gotta keep to myself. i’m sorry.”

“Sans, it would be one thing if this was something you did wrong. But you are right; nobody asks to be born.”

“look, even papyrus has no idea how he came into existence. i don’t even know for sure. all i know is that someone put a lotta effort into covering it all up.” 

“Who?” 

“whoever made me, i guess. all i know is that asgore helped.”

“Asgore was involved?!” I asked, suddenly indignant. He shuffled and turned to face the door.

“uh, i shouldn’t have said anything. i’m sorry.”

“Sans, this is a secret that you should not feel obligated to keep. It is clearly hurting you.”

“you have no idea.” His smile was big as ever, but the light in his eyes wavered. 

“Then please, tell me,” I said earnestly. “I can assure you I’ve heard worse.” 

Sans stared at me for a few moments, sighed, and walked towards the basement door. “all right. but don’t say i didn’t warn ya,” he said, throwing his arms up in an exaggerated shrug. 

I felt a small bit of relief and a whole lot of fear as I walked down the stairs. Despite the gravity of the situation, there was something comical about the way that Sans bumped down the stairs, his short legs jumping down one at a time, pink slippers thumping on each step. No matter what, Sans was still Sans. 

“right. i should probably just say this directly. you know, no beating around the bush. no, uh, passing the buck. just get close to the bones.” He sighed, plopping down onto the floor. “well, i, uh. i don’t know who my parents were. i might never know. which is fine. but, uh. you see… there was a-- oh, to hell with this. tori, i was made from a human corpse. happy now?” He was sweating, and his grin seemed to mock the dismal look in his eyes. My brain hadn’t quite processed what he said, but I knelt down and hugged him. He was shaking. 

“i… i figured out that humans have skeletons inside of ‘em, so i figured skeletons and humans were just alike. maybe we had a common ancestor or something. but then i… i had a theory, so i looked in the coffins of the humans in asgore’s palace. there were... two gone, and skeletons in the others. o-one for me, and one… for papyrus.” A tear fell on my shoulder, and he cursed. 

“what if that kid was like… like frisk? just needed some good food, some bad laughs, some friends… tori, i was born because someone murdered a sweet little kid. and… so was papyrus.” 

“Sans… I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what to say. He was clearly devastated.

“aren’t you angry i exist?” Sans asked, grinning.

“Of course I am. But I’m not angry at you, Sans. Neither you nor that child deserved that.”

He huffed. “…it’s sorta revolting, living in a corpse.”

He seemed angry. Perhaps that was an understatement. I looked over his features carefully; in retrospect, I could see how Sans' origin story made quite a bit of sense. Sans looked like a rather warped skeleton in the first place, lacking a jaw joint and being remarkably thick-boned. Had Sans been formed from a young child's body, it would make sense that his own magic might've changed the structure of his body as he grew, resulting in the short, chubby skeleton we'd come to love. But no matter what, he was still Sans. He wasn’t a human child, no matter what he said or where he came from. The body had become his own, and grew as he did. And he had grown very much since he’d first inhabited those bones.

“so? how do i look, now that you know?” 

“Like Sans,” I insisted.

“you still wanna say that? tori, i’m a huge mistake. everyone would be so much happier if i wasn’t born.”

“I wouldn’t be.”

At that, he slumped over silently, and I realized he'd begun to cry. I wasn’t sure what to do except hold him. He pulled himself away, and I sat down on the soft carpet. “i kinda wanted you to be mad at me, so i wouldn’t be as mad at myself.”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“you asked me to protect humans, but i’m only alive because someone killed one.”

“Sans, the children would’ve died whether you were alive now or not. And in a way… I’m very glad someone like you came out of this tragedy. They gave their lives, so now you have the option to live what they couldn’t. And I think I’d be happy to have someone like you replacing my soul.”

“...sometimes i feel like that kid’s watching me, watching every mistake i make. i don’t want to let them down.”

“That’s an awfully heavy burden to place on yourself,” I said, placing my hand on Sans’ shoulder. “If that child was really like Frisk, do you think you would let them down so easily?” 

“frisk doesn’t know all these secrets.”

“But Frisk would be proud of you, no matter what you did. Right, Frisk?” I called. If the child _wasn’t_ at the top of the stairs, I’d be appalled. 

Frisk peeked around the corner. “How did you know I was here?!” they demanded. _I didn't expect to find them at the bottom of the stairs, but I'm not at all surprised._

“Because you love Sans. Isn’t that right?” I asked. Frisk nodded. 

“I love you lots! But you weren’t very happy, so I got worried.” 

“how much of that did you hear?” Sans asked.

“Um… I think all of it.” I rolled my eyes. _Of course they did._

“so? did any of that rattle your bones?” 

“No. I think Mom was right. It’s not your fault that a human died. But if a nice person had to die, I think it’s fair that a nice person got to be born because of it.”

Sans seemed shocked by this. “one of you has to be mad at me.”

“If I get mad, will you feel less sad?” Frisk asked.

“it usually feels a lot better to get mad at someone else instead of yourself, but honestly, i don’t think i could get mad at ya, kid.” 

“Then how am I supposed to make you happy?” they grumbled. 

“ketchup would probably make me pretty happy,” he replied.

“OK! I’ll go get ketchup, then!” Frisk ran off dutifully, and I smiled. 

“frisk’s a good kid,” Sans said. I nodded.

“Do you feel any better?” I asked. “I know I can’t expect all of your pain to go away with just a simple conversation, but I hope you know that we aren’t upset with you.”

“y’know, i do feel better. thanks, tori. it… it means a lot. i’m glad i told you.”

“Sans, we’re on the Surface now. I hope you feel safe enough to unbury your secrets, now that we’re no longer underground.”

“...was that a pun?” Sans asked, grinning. 

“I suppose it was. I know your secrets have been buried in the dirt for a while, but do not be afraid to come clean.” 

Sans laughed genuinely, and it was one of the nicest sounds I’d heard in a while. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. This entire day had been so strange! 

“if you really wanna know one of my dirty secrets, i’ll tell ya this. next time i’m upset, i probably won’t tell you. sorry. but… you know... i’ll think about it.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, Sans. You know I’ll always be here to listen to you.” 

“you’d think that you’d get tired of listening to my voice after all these years.”

"But you always have something new to say. You never give me the chance to grow tired of you," I said, smiling.

"I have ketchup!" Frisk announced, running down the stairs.

"oh... thanks, buddy."

"Are you happy yet?" Frisk asked.

"y'know... i think i am." 

Frisk ran over to Sans and nearly bowled him over with a big hug, and I smiled. After cuddling with the skeleton, the child looked up at me and smiled. "That's good, because I have another question. Alphys was talking to Undyne about something earlier and I think it had to do with science, because it wasn't anime and Alphys only ever talks about science and anime."

"And what is that, Frisk?" 

"What's a tampon?" 

"...Frisk, I have decided we are not going to learn any more science today. Unless Sans wants to answer this one," I retorted. He merely grinned.

"sorry, kid. i gotta go clean up my sock." 

"But you never clean up your sock!" 

"that sock may be one of my proudest accomplishments, but it'll be a lot easier to clean up that sock than this conversation. well, I'll see you two later. thanks for the ketchup, kiddo. i'll cherish it."

"Aww." Frisk hugged him again, and he grinned. 

"Good luck, Toriel. This is a terrible kid you've got. Simply vicious." 

"Oh, they may be a little troublesome, but they're no _monster_." 

Sans laughed. "well, i'll see you then." 

"I hope I do." I smiled, watching as Sans evacuated the basement much faster than I thought his lazy bones could ever manage.

"Are tampons bad?" Frisk asked. 

"...Yes, Frisk. They're absolutely horrible," I replied with a smile.

"Oh. Oops. I didn't know." 

"Yes, my child... I still have much to teach you," I replied. Frisk perked up. "But not today." 

"Aww." 

**Author's Note:**

> I deeply apologize to anyone who was scarred by this story. I'd say I didn't mean to, but that would be a lie. Please leave comments!! Kudos are wonderful, but I'd love your feedback, even if you don't have much to say.
> 
> If you're so compelled, find me on Tumblr as sans-superior-legs :)


End file.
